How do you say goodbye? That quandary confronted the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra when deciding the order of this weekend’s season-closing concert program. On it are three works that can potentially send things out with a bang: Joseph Haydn’s effusively expressive 102nd Symphony, Franz Schubert’s menacing and marvelous half-a-symphony, the “Unfinished,” and Samuel Barber’s lyrical and finally frenetic Violin Concerto. Which one says, “Thanks, and have a great summer”?

Not until a curtain speech was the order established for the almost-capacity crowd at St. Paul’s Ordway Center Friday night, and the Barber got the nod. It proved an excellent choice, for the SPCO’s associate concertmaster, Ruggero Allifranchini, soloed splendidly, beautifully balancing urgency and abandon, some lines as transfixing as sirens’ songs, others vigorous and violent. It was an exceptionally dramatic and technically tight performance.

It proved an ideal climax to a concert that progressively gained momentum. While the Haydn wasn’t lent the liveliness it deserved, conductor Roberto Abbado and the orchestra found a fount of intensity on the Schubert. The shadowy opening movement was chilling, the familiar central melody displaying layers of unrest beneath its beauty. And the Andante packed such power that it actually could have worked as a cap to the season, which was the original plan before it became clear that Allifranchini’s furious finale to the Barber concerto would be too tough an act to follow.

Now let the rebuilding of the SPCO begin. Throughout the season, guests and freelancers often outnumbered orchestra members onstage, so here’s hoping that some of the positions left open by attrition will be filled by fall (most notably principal cello, bass, clarinet and French horn). It was a good season — and Friday night’s performance underlined that this is still an exceptional ensemble — but we shouldn’t expect great advances in quality until the orchestra’s foundation is fortified.

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